Chris's Blog - The Blog of Talygarn Equestrian Centre: Horse Riding in South Wales

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Riding and Road Safety Training and Exam at Talygarn Equestrian Centre June 5th to 8th - limited spaces available 16yrs and over 2012/02/21
Show Jumping Wed 22nd 5.45pm 2ft clear round then 2ft3 2ft6 2ft9 and 3ft. Double clears qualify for Cricklands.... http://t.co/Ap8epCZu 2012/02/20
Show jumping Tomorrow sunday 19th Feb, 1pm start with lead rein followed by 1ft6 1ft9 2ft 2ft3 2ft6 2ft9 3ft.... http://t.co/BjGWhdu1 2012/02/18
Well done to everyone who took part in the Team Show Jumping today. Talygarn had lots of places and one win which... http://t.co/GVjpzrt8 2012/02/15

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February 8, 2012

Icelandic Horses

Filed under: Home, Horses — Chris Rogers @ 2:04 am

Last week Steve and I took a flight to Reykjavik (the capital) in Iceland. We arrived on Wednesday evening and then had a full 4 days in Iceland before flying back on Monday. We took two late evening tours to try and catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights and were very lucky to see them on the 2nd attempt. We visited the Golden Circle, Gullfoss Waterfalls, toured the city, Hiked on Glaciers, swam in the Blue Lagoon which is a natural outdoor pool heated by volcanic lava and we went riding out on Icelandic Horses. Icelandic horses come in many colours and stand at between 13hh and 14hh but they are known as horses not ponies. There are a couple of theories for this 1. There is no Icelandic word for pony 2. Their build and weight carrying ability lends itself to a horse. The breed is hardy and they have a double coat to withstand cold temperatures.

The horses tend to be willing and enthusiastic, they are not easily spooked, probably because they don’t have any natural predators in Iceland. There are no other breeds of horse in Iceland and there are laws preventing imports of any livestock. This is to keep the breed pure and as a result of their isolation from other horses, disease in the breed within Iceland is very rare. The native horses have no acquired immunity to disease and outbreak on the island would be devastating to the breed therefore apart from banning imports any horses which leave Iceland either for export or to compete may never return. A rider may have spent several years training an Icelandic horse to the level of international competition but once they compete outside of Iceland he/she will have to sell the horse at the competition and return without him. We term our horses as having 4 gaits – walk, trot, canter, and gallop. Icelanders would say 3 gaits as canter and gallop are the same pace therefore Icelandic Horses have the same ’3′ paces as well as two extra paces called tolt and pace. The first additional gait is a four-beat lateral ambling gait known as the tölt. This is known for its explosive acceleration and speed it is also comfortable and ground-covering. The footfall pattern is the same as the walk (left hind, left front, right hind, right front), but differs from the walk in that it can be performed at a range of speeds, from the typical fast walk up to the speed of a normal canter. Some Icelandic horses prefer to tölt, while others prefer to trot, correct training can improve weak gaits, but the tölt is a natural gait present from birth. I was told the horse I was riding was good at it so I gave it a go after being instructed to sit deep on the back of the saddle, lean back and have very long stirrups, legs forward and keep his head up high – everything that goes against the grain. I think I might have got odd bits of it right as it did go smoothly occasionally but mostly spent a lot of time bouncing like a beginner as no one does rising trot and if you don’t get it the trot is very fast. Pace is a gait used in pacing races, and is fast and smooth, with some horses able to reach up to 30 miles per hour. Not all Icelandic horses can perform this gait. Animals that perform both the tölt and the flying pace in addition to the traditional gaits are considered the best of the breed. There are competitions in Iceland for showing the paces and the confirmation and for racing but show jumping is not popular. At the place where we rode there were 90 Icelandic horses with approx half of those being used for rides at during the winter. They all came in to an open plan stabling. I did notice that tack cleaning would be easier as all the horses had a bit, reins, and one strap which you could call cheek pieces and head piece combined which went from the bit over its head to the bit the other side, there was no noseband, browband, or throat lash. All horses were shod and had spikes in their shoes which enabled them to hack very sure footed over sheets of ice. (We wouldn’t bring ours out of the stable at a fraction of the ice we rode over). The owner did his own shoeing and proceeded to do a bit of nail tightening on my horse’s shoes, shoeing horses is illegal in our country unless of course he was a trained farrier. When we returned we dismounted in the yard, the two stable girls took the saddles off then instructed everyone to take off the bridles and just let the horses go, they all promptly trotted off to the field. One guy, a non rider didn’t get his bridle off fast enough which resulted in one of the stable girls legging it down the drive into the field after the whole herd, she did come back with the bridle though. None of the horses were clipped or had rugs. In fact I saw many horses in the fields and not one had a rug I suppose that’s where the double coat comes in handy

January 17, 2012

Talygarn Equestrian Centre 2011 – 2012

Filed under: College, Home, Pony Club, Riding School, Shows — Chris Rogers @ 1:04 am

Normally I like to write a blog looking back at last year at the end of the year, I don’t know where the time has gone but I cant believe we are half way through January already. This time last year was the big freeze and we had cancelled the team jumping at christmas because people couldn’t get their horses out of the stables due to the ice. This year we have had to cancel the team jumping because it has been so wet and parking would be impossible. We had many successes again last year with our students achieving numerous passes. We became a riding and road safety centre last year and our first 8 candidates all passed. We will be holding our next riding and road safety training and exam this spring. Two of our riders qualified for the area dressage last year with Carys and Buffy being placed 6th. Our Quiz team came 1st and 3rd at the area finals and 2nd at the championships in Warwick. We held or annual quiz last saturday for all Pony Club members to select the teams for 2012. There was a poor turnout for the quiz but those that came did extremely well and we will enter the teams for the area quiz in February. Our Pony Club Horse and Pony Care teams came 3rd and 4th in the juniors and the seniors came 2nd and qualified for the champs at Derbys where they came 5th. Talygarn Centre team Carys Morgan, Sarah Blake, Chloe Ellis and Robyn Edwards came 4th in the centre competition at the championships in derby out of 20 plus teams with Robyn Edwards winning best newcomer. The Fun Dog Show, Halloween Party, Christmas Gymkhana, Team show jumping, Camps and many other activities were a great success last year along with the Summer Open Day which gets better every year. After visiting a riding school in france which participate in vaulting I have wanted to have a go at putting a display together which I did for the open day last summer. It was a great success and I decided to take up some further training in coaching. This year we will be adding equestrian vaulting to our long list of already popular activities starting with taster sessions in February. We were very lucky throughout the summer with managing to hold all of our mini hunter trials in the fields and the show jumping and dressage have been very popular. With all the rain we have had this winter i am hoping there wont be too much left and we will have another good run this summer. On the holiday front I managed Morocco Greece Romania Singapore and Malaysia and I’m starting 2012 with Iceland and Belfast. The garden wasn’t as good last year although I did have an abundance of runner beans, lettuce, potatoes and the fruit trees did well. There are lots of photos on the gallery for last year and I’m sure there will be lots more this year. Keep an eye on the website for all activities and a belated Happy New Year

December 8, 2011

Malaysia/Singapore

Filed under: Home — Chris Rogers @ 8:50 am

So relieved we didn’t have the snow this year that we had this time last year when we were away. Although this weather we have come home too is not great. We had a lot of rain in Malaysia as it is the end of the monsoon season. Most days it rained quite heavily for one to three hours after 3pm. I found it was very hot early in the morning till about 11am then very hot and very humid until it broke to rain and thunder and then fresher but hot. Despite the awful weather that we have here I don’t think I could work in that sort of weather. I didn’t see many horses in fields etc in either Singapore or Malaysia – didn’t even really see any fields in Singapore, we did visit a riding school in Langkawi (an island in Malaysia) but we didn’t ride mainly cause it was too hot to bother and secondly cause they charged £45 per hour and I didn’t fancy paying £45 to ride in the jungle amongst scorpions and snakes which can kill you within 10 minutes. It was a nice yard though, we had a look around and it was well laid out with an indoor stabling set up and an outdoor school – don’t suppose they would need an indoor one although if I rode there I would want an indoor school with air conditioning. Horses were mainly arabs and in very good condition, which was nice to see because generally most horses I have seen abroad are in poor condition. Singapore and Kuala Lumpa are huge cities much of which contains high rise apartments and offices. Fantastic if your into shopping as massive indoor shopping centres, great to see but not really my thing I much preferred the Tea Plantations in the Cameron Highlands and the Mangrove swamps in Langkawi where we saw pretty coral fish, spitting archer fish, walking fish, eagles and kites, swimming monkeys, bright coloured crabs, fruit bats and we came across a poisonous snake sleeping in a tree. During the last week I had had a slight sore throat which delevolped into a throat infection, on the last night I felt really ill and thought I should probably try to get something to take. We found a clinic at 11.30pm the doctor saw me straight away (and he spoke english – rare in the uk) he perscribed me antibiotics, cough syrup, throat sweets and Ibuprofen which were all given to me at the clinic. I paid £22 and the whole thing took 10 minutes – and people say Britain is great for its health service.

November 17, 2011

Talygarn Country Manor and Park

Filed under: Home — Chris Rogers @ 3:47 pm

Talygarn Equestrian Centre is situated to the left of Talygarn Country Manor and Park. Originally the manor was a owned by the Clark family and the whole area including the Equestrian centre belonged to the Manor. My Grandfather bought what would have been the coach house and the yards (now Talygarn House and Talygarn Mews) in the 1950’s plus a substantial amount of land which my father farmed until the motorway came through the land in the 1970’s. My brother then ran the yards as a livery yard until builders purchased it and it became the Mews. We bought the land over 20years ago and established the Equestrian Centre. The Manor house was leased to the Coal board as a convalescent home for coal miners in the 1920’s. In approx 2000 The Manor was purchased by Cowbridge Developments and converted into country houses and flats. I believe there is a management committee of residents who now control the communal areas. The decisions they make border on the ridiculous, I assume none of them have been successful business people. Firstly despite the fact that I have lived here nearly 50 years some residents seem to have an aversion to horses even though the Equestrian centre is used as a selling point for the properties and they don’t seem to notice that there are quite a few other people in this area that own, ride and transport horses. Some difficulties arise from shared access and those who would prefer not to share. Serious damage was done to the roads by the developers which was never repaired. Firstly barriers appeared at every entrance just in case a horse should venture near their homes, this made me smile as you could ride round them if you wanted to. I have never ridden on land owned by the Manor nor do I intend too but I will continue to use the roadways I have used for nearly 50 years but I can’t vouch for other people living in the area with horses. Recently a sign has appeared at the main entrance saying NO EQUESTRIAN TRAFFIC. I assume by this they don’t want people with lorries and trailers using the main gates and would prefer to use the lower lane. We always use the lane and we tell all people who visit the centre with lorries and trailers to use the lower lane. I do know that some other residents with horses that live in Talygarn do not but this is nothing to do with me and their reasoning is that the lane is in poor repair which is true. Some times when people visit the centre they do not realise that they have to veer off right to be on the lane and end up at the gates by accident. Personally I wouldn’t have wasted the money on a negative NO ENTRY sign. It wold have had more effect had they bought two signs with arrows and put one each end of the lane saying EQUESTRIAN TRAFFIC THIS WAY. Also I would never have purchased those awful barriers a friend of mine thought it was an open prison complex.

November 13, 2011

Mini Pony Club

Filed under: Home, Pony Club — Chris Rogers @ 4:58 pm

Mini Pony Club meet every other Saturday and it is for the 4 to 7yr old Pony Club Centre members from Talygarn. The session lasts an hour and is run by Jennifer Rogers and Nadine Pugh. Every few weeks the children work towards a new badge. Some of the badges are Equine and some are about the countryside. They are working on their Birds badge at the moment. All the badges include a lot of games, colouring and and some practical sessions. Last saturday each child made a birds nest from hay, leaves, twigs and horse hair with some brightly coloured plasticine for eggs. If you would like your child to join the pony club ask at the office for a form. There are other sessions available for older children. Photo Callums Birds Nest